An Act To Allow Any Person To Purchase Voter Registration Lists
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:
Sec. 1. 21-A MRSA §196-A, sub-§1, ¶B, as amended by PL 2015, c. 447, §7, is further amended to read:
B. A political party, or an individual or organization engaged in so-called "get out the vote" efforts directly related to a campaign or other activities directly related to a campaign, or an individual who has been elected or appointed to and is currently serving in a municipal, county, state or federal office, Any person may purchase a list or report of certain voter information from the central voter registration system by making a request to the Secretary of State or to a registrar if the information requested concerns voters in that municipality. The Secretary of State or the registrar shall make available the following voter record information, subject to the fees set forth in subsection 2: the voter's name, residence address, mailing address, year of birth, enrollment status, electoral districts, voter status, date of registration, date of change of the voter record if applicable, voter participation history, voter record number and any special designations indicating uniformed service voters, overseas voters or township voters. Any person obtaining, either directly or indirectly, information from the central voter registration system under this paragraph may not sell, distribute or use the data for any unlawful purpose that is not directly related to activities of a political party, "get out the vote" efforts directly related to a campaign or other activities directly related to a campaign. This paragraph does not prohibit political parties, party committees, candidate committees, political action committees or any other organizations that have purchased information from the central voter registration system from providing access to such information to their members for purposes directly related to party activities, "get out the vote" efforts or a campaign. For purposes of this paragraph, "campaign" has the same meaning as in section 1052, subsection 1.
summary
This bill allows any person to purchase voter registration information. Current law allows only candidates, office holders, political action committees and other similarly situated persons to purchase such information.